First team
Juwan Staten (without him West Virginia would be average at best this year.)
Frank Mason (without him KU would have been right back to crying about no PG)
Buddy Hield (competitor, what can you say we wish he choose KU instead)
Perry Ellis (came on strong at the end to earn first team)
Rico Gathers ( best rebounder in the country has improved his offensive game immensly)

2nd team
Phil Forte ( have a strong disdain for him personally but he became an all around player)
Isiah Cousins (improved to become lethal 3 point shooter with Hield)
Taurean Prince (comes off the bench to average 14 a game improved leaps and bounds)
Lebryan Nash ( just a scorer, and a good one)
George Niang (probably 1st team on reputation, I think others proved more)

COY
Self in a landslide
POY
Hield for consistent play in Big 12
FOY
Kelly Oubre (if Turner wins this, people don’t have a clue or watched any Big 12 play)
Newcomer of the year
Tashawn Thomas

Comments:
Mason probably loses out on first team because of Staten & Hields reputation but he belongs. Niang I thought wasn’t consistent enough to earn first team and Ellis & Gathers really had monster games that put them on it.
If Turner wins Freshman of Year you haven’t watched enough basketball to tell me he deserves it. 7 games in double figures plus many more where he didn’t show up at all. He couldn’t even start on a team that might not even make the tourney.
Oubre had 11 games in double figures and earned his keep in the lineup.

@jayhawk-007
I do not know or understand the game well as you board rats That said, my eyes and gut are telling me this year’s B12 POY is FRANK MASON!! Without him, we’ve lost earlier games that could have costed us the 11th when Ellis was being reprogrammed by Self. What Ellis learned in the last two years had to be scrapped and reprogrammed with jb’s Bad Ball which is totally different. Ellis wore his frustration on his face in early conference games. Mason also shot lights out – how many double digit games did he have? Ellis finally came through, but without Mason, the 11th would not have been possible. So, my hats off to Mason, the Iron Fist! Just my thoughts.

I’m dumbfounded by Turner getting FOY over KO! Now, I haven’t looked at the stats…maybe that will prove me wrong. But, the eye test says that KO, with his all around game and being, say, the 3rd best player on the best team doesn’t deserve FOY over Turner?
Do you guys agree? Am I being too much of a homer?

@ParisHawk : we do not “disappoint in March” unless you say (like some write on this site) anything other than a National Title is always a disappointment. This is not the case in a tourney like The Dance. Lots of random factors come into play (match ups, injuries, luck…). The real issue is do we play to our level and give ourselves a chance to overachieve? We do this more so under Coach Self than under Coach Williams, and certainly as well as any other program in the nation, year in and year out.

We have actually preformed at level in the tourney, in my opinion, over the years of the Self era (good but not great) : some years over performing (2012) and some years under performing (2005 and 06), just like all other teams and all other coaches.

KU has done better than most teams, but we all want our teams to do better every year! Sorry to disappoint, but this year’s team is certainly not one of the elite teams in the country (top 2-8), but rather a second tier elite team (5-15).

People outside of competitive sports often make no distinction between ‘could have won’ and ‘should have won’, and become emotional about what the team “should have done”. Let’s remember how hard and exceptional it is to win six straight games against elite competition. ‘Should have’ this year is only UK. For all the other top four or five teams ‘should have’ is realistically to make the Final Four.

If KU does not make it through the first weekend (two tourney wins), we will be disappointed (underachievement) every single year. Remember 2013 when UK did not even make the NCAA tourney? (It was not that long ago…).

If our team makes it through the second weekend (regional winner and into the Final Four) we should be delighted (overachievement), regardless of the ensuing results. For this team, round of 16 is at level and round of 8 (regional finals) is a little above level, depending on all the other factors mentioned previously (match ups, injuries, luck, etc.).

Truth be told, shooting more threes, playing bad ball, and all the other fun comments made by board rats and fans have less relevance in the NCAA tourney than being blessed with favorable match ups, staying healthy and having some good luck at crunch time. Making free throws is very important, and we are money at the line. But sometimes the ball bounces in strange ways and luck plays a role in a single game elimination. The very best players can create their opportunities, and a single great player can make a difference. But most of the time, either team can win and there is more ‘could have’ than ‘should have’ in the Dance.

Here is the Kansas Season By Season NCAA Tourney Results under Coach Self:

You have Turner who got 7 double digit scoring games for I think it was 9.9 conference average. Oubre had 11 double digit scoring games for 10.2 average.

Then you have Oubre who started every conference game but 1 vs Myles Turner who comes off the bench.

They both did well rebounding the ball. Block shots clearly go to Turner as he’s 7ft.

The biggest deciding factor to me was impact on the team. Oubre was indispensable to this teams run to #11. Turner didn’t do anything to keep Texas from finishing no where. Reputation won him the award nothing else.

The impressive stats for Turner are rebounds (# 8 in conf, Ellis # 5)), blocks (#1 in conf by quite a margin) and FT % (# 8 in conf ahead of all KU players). Kelly has also had a great year and I predict both will be lottery picks this year.

@drgnslayr (simply playing devil’s advocate here), but doesn’t the WVU game with us going 0-13 from 3 prove the “fool’s gold” comment? Doesn’t IowaSt shooting themselves out of their own gym prove that it can indeed be fool’s gold? But IowaState had nothing to go to, while KU pulled out a W against WVU because we have other less glamorous ways to pull out a win. Maybe instead of trying to wish that Self got a little more of Fred Hoiberg in him, we ought to thank the Larry Brown, the Eddie Sutton, and the Tom Izzo ass-kickings that actually reside and resonate inside of Bill Self.

For the reality is, we didn’t win this #11 by being IowaState. We did it with the “stuff” that Self teams usually are all about. Oh, but I know, the grass is always greener, especially after staring at the same offensive schemes, the same plays, and especially watching 2 consecutive seasons of inexperienced teams trying to run ‘that stuff’.

How did KULA once sum up that segment of the fan base’s thoughts: “this guy who’s never technically ever left the Midwest, has us running this archane ‘weave’, hokie-pokie offense”, followed by the other usual comments we can find after a KU loss, especially a loss in the Tourney…I bet just about anybody starts to look like a palatable replacement, right? Since that Butler Brad has disappeared from the college scene, how about that VA coach? Yeah, there’s some KU-like dominance! Of course Roy wouldn’t be good enough anymore. Nor would Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, either out of appearance or age or matter of principle (no Dookie). Well, then I suppose the next “usual” list is to list any/all past KU players that are in coaching–yeah, maybe that would be nice, if they are able to prove coaching excellence somehow. Maybe they could win 80+% of their games, have some Final 4 experience, and maybe, just maybe, have a NC under their belt…Then maybe Jayhawk Nation might think them worthy enough to coach our Hawks? Kinda just wondering aloud.

I also don’t think 52yr old leopards change their spots. I was as shocked in years that the current KU coach actually ditched his offensive -rebounds mantra to beat IowaState. Didn’t think he’d put such a concept-kill up his sleeve like that. Neither did Fred Hoiberg, evidently. And also apparent, is that in three of IowaState’s conf losses, our young, dapper, perfect-demeanor Fred Hoiberg didn’t seem to have plan B up his sleeve…

Good offense and hot three point shooting will ALWAYS beat great defense and standard offense on any given night. And the Dance is single elimination tourney (unlike the NBA playoffs). KU would have a great advantage in a 2 out of 3 format.

But great defense and high percentage standard offense will ALWAYS beat great scoring offenses over the course of a season, multiple games. It is much easier to have consistent D than consistent O, especially from three point range.

I think we have arrived at the following conclusions:

It is harder to have tough consistent aggressive play when a team is primarily a jump shooting, three bombing team. Running disciplined offense and driving the ball to the hoop and concentrating on defense and rebounding makes the toughness factor more real game to game and creates a better and more consistent product on the court.

Self is a tremendous overall coach and an outstanding defensive mind but is not a great creative offensive wizard. His “stuff” (offensive sets) has grown stale and lacks modernity. KU offensive is sophisticated and requires great post passers and knowledge of where to go on the court, and is especially hard to learn for OAD and TAD players.

So, we will need to upgrade and modernize and run more plays to get more open threes on offense with this group and future recruits as well. But even if he wanted to, Coach cannot make these big changes at this time, this year - just too many variables and moving parts. All the comments are valid, but not for this year, at tourney time of the year.

But we all agree he could tweak a few things a get a few more looks from beyond the arch, but there are other priorities and things to emphasize short term.

Very good debate on this site concerning our team and coach. Now is the time to win in the ways we best know how. RCJH!

KU: Jekyll-hyde team exposes both its youthful inexperience as well as its talent-loaded roster almost on a nightly basis. Steady, game-long performance was seen vs IowaSt in AFH, and at Texas, but has been hard to reproduce reliably. Self using a deeper lineup only compounds the difficulty in sustained consistency of effort and of result. (KU comments big-pix only, as we know our players.) The main driver of this team is Frank Mason III, without question.

OU: The league’s best teams are all guilty of blowing double digit leads. OU has had meltdowns. OU has played tough. Got to love Hield’s enthusiasm–clearly the team leader. He will have a shot at NBA play. Their bigs are a bunch of tough scrappers. They are a BigXII version of MichiganState. Scrappy bigs, toughness all around, and above-avg guard play, along with sound, fundamental coaching. Kruger is getting it done in Norman. I wonder what his next 2 recruiting classes will bring? OU is serious about Men’s basketball, from some of the OU alums I know. Much money on the Men’s facilities was spent 3-4 yrs ago, along with getting Kruger. They’ve had some past tradition, lets see where they can take it.

IowaSt: It all starts with Hoiberg. Credit him for bringing a different philosophy, the players to make it work, and showing that he can sustain top20 level of play now with his 2nd set of players. Contrary to a poster above, I think Niang is a very skilled guy, very much like Ellis, but both a question-mark at the pro level because of their size. He is dominant at the college level. He has post moves, and a trey gun, and a Marcus-like jab-step pullup midrange J. Their most important, dynamic player. The now-emerging flaw with IowaSt is their lack of planB (now that Deandre Kane is gone), when the 3 bombs are off target, OR if Niang is in foul trouble. McKay has helped. Hoiberg has lamented poor D in their losses for 2 seasons now. Can they hit 3s for a 6 game run in the Madness? Statistics say “NO”. KU was a better 3 shooting team for the season than IowaSt…what??? And KU even pulled an 0-13 vs WVU.

WVU: Gritty, scrappy, intense. They do exactly what Huggins wants. Watching Huggins go at Self is like watching a Big10 grinder. Staten may be the heart and soul, and maybe what was missing in the WVU game at AFH. Scary thought. Jayhawks got taught about toughness in that game, at least without having to taste an L.

Baylor: Check if Drew has a new assistant coach, and how many coaching medals that asst may have under his coat…because this season’s Bears are a gritty bunch. I sadly missed the Baylor 18pt beating of WVU in Morgantown, and am totally flummoxed as to how Drew’s bunch pulled that off. They have battled in every game. KU was lucky in the 1pt win in Waco. A dynamic Chery + athletic bigs + 1 power-big-body = a tourney-capable pkg. And they have credible wins to give confidence.

TCU: Ah, there’s a new purple in town (ftball and bkball). Trent Johnson proving he is a worthy adversary for more than just Topeka-Y caliber opponents. He has a young squad that got about 2 notches better this year. And, not hard to recruit to the DFW area. Keep an eye on this program. Other than Karviar Shepherd, a list of who-dat? players, but they could be next season’s OU or Baylor. (You read it here on kubuckets first…)

OklaSt: Missing some pieces from last year, as well as some bench depth, but that didn’t stop them from playing tough and inspired ball, especially against KU. Don’t they like their fellow alum, Bill Self? Why do they play so hard against Self’s team, but not against others as consistently? I guess their motivational issue may lie with Travis Ford. The KU win may have bought Ford another season. Mid-tier program at best. Clearly getting eclipsed by OU, and I don’t know how in-state Oklahomans see that, especially OkieSt alums. Travis Ford is treading water at best regarding that legacy in Gallagher-Iba that Sutton built and maintained for years.

TxTech: The TubbyTechies! Another program, painstakingly building from the ground-up with freshman. A young team with consistency issues, physicality issues, and some injury issues. Tubby knows what he is doing, and frankly, west Texas is lucky he still wants to coach, as obviously he still feels he has something to prove. And he will. Another mid-pack team next season. They have battled close in some games. It took KU’s #1 lotto pick Wiggins to beat them last year. “easy win=TxTech” is a phrase whose days are numbered, and is pretty much dying this season.

KState: This university has had basketball tradition in the distant past. The current players have fought and hustled at times, other times there seem to be strife and issues on this team. It must be remembered that after 3-4 games of conf play, KState was co-leading the conference. My, how the wheels fell off. Losing your most dynamic player and scorer (Foster) to off-court silly stuff simply was a disaster. Weber is a walking, talking contradiction. Lackluster professionals often point to past accomplishments to keep hope up, but that only works for a while. And the poor KSU fanbase is a very odd collection of (historical) basketball pride, misplaced football-driven enthusiasm that isn’t being done justice by the state of their basketball program, and simply inappropriate behavior for intercollegiate athletics by a sizable segment of their fanbase–some fellow Kansans have called them an embarrassment nationally. (And for that matter, their football enthusiasm is barely supported by their football program, an in-state + quasi-regional power, with zero pretense of being able to take on the likes of Urban Meyer or Nick Saban, or the recruits that such elite coaches are able to get). The inferiority complex shown by their basketball fans must be disturbing to the KSU bball players. How will Weber be able to recruit to Manhattan. Frank Martin could, but the other (older, more conservative) segment of the KSU fanbase didn’t like Frank. Unfortunately a program on a power-slide, and you saw it happen this season, beginning in January.

TX: Another year of Texas not equaling the sum of their parts, looking like a top10 team for 1 half vs. Kentucky, then dropping some no-no games. For example, losing to KSU, there is simply no excuse for (same as KU, no excuse). On paper, this team has some nice pieces with a dynamic PG, Ridley, Holmes, Lammert. The feeling is that Myles Turner is underutilized, and perhaps mis-used in the mpg that he does play. These guys have consistently blocked shots, they play decent D, yet they look too often undisciplined on the offensive end. Unfortunately, while I like Rick Barnes more than most KU fans do, that failing falls on him and his staff. Or maybe allowing their offense to be the Isaiah Taylor show is all by design. The kid is legit…a lot better than Myck Kabongo. But he doesn’t try to make his teammates better. Probably the most damning idea, is if Bill Self were coaching the Texas team, he’d be contending for the BigXII crown with them. Texas simply does not strike fear in me. While Taylor absolutely plays his heart out, there always is a piece missing for TX, and this year it is toughness and lack of unifying identity about how they want to play.

@jayhawk-007 The only thing about your very first sentence about good offense and hot 3pt shooting will always beat great defense and standard offense–> wouldn’t that be mutually exclusive? How could good offense and hot shooting actually exist in a game where the opponent is playing “great defense”–we couldn’t logically call that “great defense”, could we?

Since the discussion seems to revolve about our offensive “system” design and philosophy, lets take 2 very familiar systems, both at the pinnacle of their coach’s wishes: Roy’s UNC overall #1 seed in 2008 vs. Self’s #1 seed KU in that same 2008 Final 4. KU’s defense absolutely butchered UNC in the first half. Went brain-dead for a portion of the 2nd half, and then proceeded to put the clamps on that UNC 1seed again. Beat them twice in the same game.

Those 08 players are long gone, but the toughness element is still with us, with even this young team using everything they had (except the non-existent 3gun) to gut out a W against WVU.

We didn’t win the BigXII by trying to be IowaState. And Fred Hoiberg didn’t win it either. In the FreeThe3 Movement, the poster team (IowaSt) is sitting in 3rd place. 2nd place happens to be an OU team that plays tough and scrappy…interestingly similar to the team that actually ended up winning the BigXII outright. Yet again.

Let’s focus for a painful minute on a couple of other coaches, like Shaka Smart and Ben Jacobsen. Where did they go? Where have they been? UNI is back now after like a 5 year absence, fell off the face of the earth. So Jacobsen has a nice team this year, done the mid-major way: grew them up, coached them up, and they are top 20. But what did KU do in the years after the loss to UNI? Went to another Final 4 + NC game with zero bench is all. UNI a yearly top10 team?–> the verdict says no.

And Shaka Smart? Where’s his team been? Man, what happened to those darling, fast offense, 3-shooting, giant-killers? (Got killed in the giant games that miracle season (I guess the fools gold ran out or got outted), and haven’t been back since.) VCU a yearly top10 team?–>again the verdict says no.

What about KU and what that Self keeps peddling…? Want proof-of-concept? Check the Banners, including the one he just added. Again. Sportsters are also debating if this is “among” Self’s worst teams ever…but how interesting that one of his worst is still a top10 team, and on the line as a 2-seed? So should he try to espouse the Hoiberg plan? Or the Smart plan? Or the Jacobsen plan? Come on, its a legit question…all these guys beat Bill Self, right? What would be the impetus for a guy sitting on top of the BigXII, with another banner, and with a top10 team, going in as a 2seed…to now morph himself into something he has never been? Does he think “his stuff” is broken? Or maybe he thinks his current guys aren’t quite as good as the 08 guys at running “his stuff”. And on the occasions that this KU team HAS executed his “stuff” well offensively and played great defensively…what has been the result? (check the new banner).

Now I don’t know what Bill Self thinks, Im just wondering aloud about all of this…and about what would compel a successful man to possibly contemplate changing his core philosophies?

“(simply playing devil’s advocate here), but doesn’t the WVU game with us going 0-13 from 3 prove the “fool’s gold” comment? Doesn’t IowaSt shooting themselves out of their own gym prove that it can indeed be fool’s gold?”

Good post! I like to play both sides of this fence. You will never have to say much to convince me that offense wins games but defense wins championships.

I have come to believe something else these days. Why can’t we win BOTH sides of the ball? I am a Mayor fan now. It wasn’t by choice. I just can’t deny what he has accomplished up in Ames. It really isn’t fair to compare us to ISU, Self to the Mayor. He doesn’t land the first and third picks in the NBA draft or anything close. But he has become a formidable foe and will continue to do so. He also has to overcome the historic trends. ISU doesn’t have a history of winning on the road or winning ALL of their home games. The history of Kansas basketball is set in this formula, which has formalized into expectations. We get new freshmen every year… they become indoctrinated into Kansas legacy… that is a big part of why we continue to be successful.

I, now, understand Self’s comment about “fool’s gold.” It was his effort to redirect the team to focus on toughness. Shooting 50% from trey for the season does not warrant criticism. But using the trey as a crutch to slack off in other areas of the game DOES warrant criticism! The OU game in AFH was simply unacceptable! It really wasn’t a story about being hot and then cold. It was a story about being hot and then letting off the gas! Now you have your “fool’s gold!” Only a fool kicks back on a lead and hopes to keep it going by playing soft but hitting 3s.

Back to my main point… does basketball have to be played like this? Do we have to be an “either/or” team? Can’t we play tough BadAssBall in all areas of the game? Does our offense have to suck in order to get our guys motivated to play tough defense?

I think Self is doing a remarkable job with a very young team! I never expected him to get such toughness out of them! Now… it would be great if they can maintain some consistency!

@drgnslayr I hope you are not saying that coach told them not to shoot any more 3’s after half during the OU game at home? Bb is a game of runs, after hitting 9(?) back to back, our run was over! It was sweet! I’m not an ISU fan, it’s fun for me to watch them shoot themselves out of a game. They are better this year w/Niang going to the hole and McKay has been huge for their underdeveloped inside game. Our 3 shooting got a tiny bit better last weekend, right now Wayne can’t buy a bucket, but Dg and Mason hit a couple. As we all know BG could have made huge strides(team wise too) if he didn’t let the team down.

Best Technical benefitting KU. OU’s Cousins T against ISU when they were winning by 20. The fool fueled ISU’s stunning rally helping us win another league championship.

Should’ve been a T. Saturday, when another OU fool, Khadeem Graham 6’9" blocked Graham 6’2", and while his teammates were racing up the court turns to the crowd styling and prancing and showing off. 2 more points for KU on technical FT’s might have been beneficial, don’t you think?

@drgnslayr I think past Self teams HAVE excelled in both kinds of ball, but its a question of Developmental Completeness. Self’s 08 team was farthest along on its developmental timeline than ANY other KU Self team…except for the '12RunnerUp Hawks, with the starters ALL jr’s & sr’s. Note both teams got to the Champ game, & toughness & heart of either team was never questioned. The team with depth won a NC, the one with no bench did not.

The analytical lessons on what Selfs system needs for its best showing is clear: boys that have grown into playing like MEN. Use our hindsight…such an easily visible conclusion.